THE ARS POETICA 121

Are you improving and growing more mellow as the years go by?
Why take out a single thorn and ignore the others?
If you can’t live as you ought, give way to those who can.
You’ve eaten and drunk; you’ve had your fun; it’s time to be going.
Or else, when you’ve drunk too much, you may be pushed aside
and mocked by youngsters, whose wild behaviour is less out of
[place.

THE ARS POETICA

Horace's young friends are offered advice on the craft of writing

poetry. Innate ability is taken for granted (409-10), but does not lend
itself to analysis.

Suppose a painter decided to set a human head

on a horse’s neck, and to cover the body with coloured feathers,
combining limbs so that the top of a lovely woman
came to a horrid end in the tail of an inky fish -
when invited to view the piece, my friends, could you stifle your
[laughter?
Well, dear Pisos, I hope you’ll agree that a book containing
fantastic ideas, like those conceived by delirious patients,
where top and bottom never combine to form a whole,
is exactly like that picture.
‘Painters and poets alike
have always enjoyed the right to take what risks they please.’
I know; I grant that freedom and claim the same in return,
but not to the point of allowing wild to couple with tame,
or showing a snake and a bird, or a lamb and tiger, as partners.

Often you’ll find a serious work of large pretensions

with here and there a purple patch that is sewn on
to give a vivid and striking effect - lines describing
Diana’s grove and altar, or a stream which winds and hurries
along its beauteous vale, or the river Rhine, or a rainbow.
But here they are out of place. Perhaps you can draw a cypress;
what good is that, if the subject you’ve been engaged to paint
is a shipwrecked sailor swimming for his life? The job began
as a wine-jar; why as the wheel revolves does it end as a jug?
So make what you like, provided the thing is a unified whole.
 122 HORACE

Poets in the main (I’m speaking to a father and his excellent sons)
are baffled by the outer form of what’s right. I strive to be brief,
and become obscure; I try for smoothness, and instantly lose
muscle and spirit; to aim at grandeur invites inflation;
excessive caution or fear of the wind induces grovelling.
The man who brings in marvels to vary a simple theme
30 is painting a dolphin among the trees, a boar in the billows.
Avoiding a fault will lead to error if art is missing.

Any smith in the area round Aemilius’ school

will render nails in bronze and imitate wavy hair;
the final effect eludes him because he doesn’t know how
to shape a whole. If I wanted to do a piece of sculpture,
I’d no more copy him than I’d welcome a broken nose,
when my jet black eyes and jet black hair had won admiration.

You writers must pick a subject that suits your powers,

giving lengthy thought to what your shoulders are built for
40 and what they aren’t. If your choice of theme is within your scope,
you won’t have to seek for fluent speech or lucid arrangement.
Arrangement’s virtue and value reside, if I’m not mistaken,
in this: to say right now what has to be said right now,
postponing and leaving out a great deal for the present.

The writer pledged to produce a poem must also be subtle

and careful in linking words, preferring this to that.
When a skilful collocation renews a familiar word,
that is distinguished writing. If novel terms are demanded
to introduce obscure material, then you will have the
50 chance to invent words which the apron-wearing Cethegi
never heard; such a right will be given, if it’s not abused.
New and freshly created words are also acceptable
when channelled from Greek, provided the trickle is small. For why
should Romans refuse to Virgil and Varius what they’ve allowed
to Caecilius and Plautus? And why should they grumble if I succeed
in bringing a little in, when the diction of Ennius and Cato
showered wealth on our fathers’ language and gave us unheard of
names for things? We have always enjoyed and always will
the right to produce terms which are marked with the current stamp.
60 Just as the woods change their leaves as year follows year
60a {the earliest fall, and others spring up to take their place)
so the old generation of words passes away,
THE ARS POETICA 123

and the newly arrived bloom and flourish like human children.
We and our works are owed to death, whether our navy
is screened from the northern gales by Neptune welcomed ashore -
a royal feat - or a barren swamp which knew the oar
feeds neighbouring cities and feels the weight of the plough,
or a river which used to damage the crops has altered its course
and learned a better way. Man’s structures will crumble;
so how can the glory and charm of speech remain for ever?
Many a word long dead will be born again, and others
which now enjoy prestige will fade, if Usage requires it.
She controls the laws and rules and standards of language.

The feats of kings and captains and the grim battles they fought -
the proper metre for such achievements was shown by Homer.
The couplet of longer and shorter lines provided a framework,
first for lament, then for acknowledging a prayer’s fulfilment.
Scholars, however, dispute the name of the first poet
to compose small elegiacs; the case is still undecided.
Fury gave Archilochus her own missile - the iambus.
The foot was found to fit the sock and the stately buskin,
because it conveyed the give and take of dialogue; also
it drowned the noise of the pit and was naturally suited to action.
The lyre received from the Muse the right to celebrate gods
and their sons, victorious boxers, horses first in the race,
the ache of a lover’s heart, and uninhibited drinking.
If, through lack of knowledge or talent, I fail to observe
the established genres and styles, then why am I hailed as a poet?
And why, from misplaced shyness, do I shrink from learning the
f trade?
A comic subject will not be presented in tragic metres.
Likewise Thyestes’ banquet is far too grand a tale
for verse of an everyday kind which is more akin to the sock.
Everything has its appropriate place, and it ought to stay there.
Sometimes, however, even Comedy raises her voice,
as angry Chremes storms along in orotund phrases;
and sometimes a tragic actor grieves in ordinary language -
Peleus and Telephus (one an exile, the other a beggar)
both abandon their bombast and words of a foot and a half
when they hope to touch the listener’s heart with their sad appeals.

Correctness is not enough in a poem; it must be attractive,

leading the listener’s emotions in whatever way it wishes.
 IZ4 HORACE

When a person smiles, people’s faces smile in return;

when he weeps, they show concern. Before you can move me to
[tears,
you must grieve yourself. Only then will your woes distress me,
Peleus or Telephus. If what you say is out of character,
I’ll either doze or laugh. Sad words are required
by a sorrowful face; threats come from one that is angry,
jokes from one that is jolly, serious words from the solemn.
Nature adjusts our inner feelings to every variety
of fortune, giving us joy, goading us on to anger,
no making us sink to the ground under a load of suffering.
Then, with the tongue as her medium, she utters the heart’s
[emotions.
If what a speaker says is out of tune with his state,
the Roman audience, box and pit, will bellow with laughter.
A lot depends on whether the speaker is a god or a hero,
a ripe old man, or one who is still in the flush and flower
of youth, a lady of high degree, or a bustling nurse,
a roaming merchant, or one who tills a flourishing plot,
a Colchian or an Assyrian, a native of Thebes or Argos.

Writers, follow tradition, or at least avoid anomalies

izo when you’re inventing. If you portray the dishonoured Achilles,
see that he’s tireless, quick to anger, implacable, fierce;
have him repudiate laws, and decide all issues by fighting.
Make Medea wild and intractable, Ino tearful,
Ixion treacherous, Io a roamer, Orestes gloomy.
If you are staging something untried and taking the risk
of forming a new character, let it remain to the end
as it was when introduced, and keep it true to itself.

It’s hard to express general things in specific ways.

You’d be well advised to spin your plays from the song of Troy
130 rather than introduce what no one has said or thought of.
If you want to acquire some private ground in the public domain,
don’t continue to circle the broad and common track,
or try to render word for word like a loyal translator;
don’t follow your model into a pen from which
diffidence or the laws of the genre prevent escape;
and don’t begin in the style of the ancient cyclic poet:
‘Of Priam’s fate I sing and a war that’s famed in story.’
What can emerge in keeping with such a cavernous promise?
THE ARS POETICA I25

The mountains will labour and bring to birth a comical mouse.

How much better the one who makes no foolish effort:
‘Tell, O Muse, of the man who after Troy had fallen
saw the cities of many people and their ways of life.’
His aim is not to have smoke after a flash, but light
emerging from smoke, and thus revealing his splendid marvels:
the cannibal king Antiphates, the Cyclops, Scylla, Charybdis.
He doesn’t start Diomedes’ return from when Meleager
died, nor the Trojan war from the egg containing Helen.
He always presses on to the outcome and hurries the reader
into the middle of things as though they were quite familiar.
He ignores whatever he thinks cannot be burnished bright;
he invents at will, he mingles fact and fiction, but always
so that the middle squares with the start, and the end with the
[middle.

Consider now what I, and the public too, require,

if you want people to stay in their seats till the curtain falls
and then respond with warmth when the soloist calls for applause:
you must observe the behaviour that goes with every age-group,
taking account of how dispositions change with the years.
The child who has learnt to repeat words and to plant his steps
firmly is keen to play with his friends; he loses his temper
easily, then recovers it, changing from hour to hour.
The lad who has left his tutor but has not acquired a beard
enjoys horses and hounds and the grass of the sunny park.
Easily shaped for the worse, he is rude to would-be advisers,
reluctant to make any practical plans, free with his money;
quixotic and passionate, he soon discards what he set his heart on.
Manhood brings its own mentality, interests change;
now he looks for wealth and connections, strives for position,
and is wary of doing anything which may be hard to alter.
An old man is surrounded by a host of troubles: he amasses
money but leaves it untouched, for he’s too nervous to use it;
poor devil, his whole approach to life is cold and timid;
he puts things off, is faint in hope, and shrinks from the future.
Morose and a grumbler, he is always praising the years gone by
when he was a boy, scolding and blaming ‘the youth of today’.
The years bring many blessings as they come to meet us; receding,
they take many away. To avoid the mistake of assigning
an old man’s lines to a lad, or a boy’s to a man, you should always
stick to the traits that naturally go with a given age.
 12.6 HORACE

An action is shown occurring on stage or else is reported.

180 Things received through the ear stir the emotions more faintly
than those which are seen by the eye (a reliable witness) and hence
conveyed direct to the watcher. But don’t present on the stage
events which ought to take place within. Much of what happens
should be kept from view and then retailed by vivid description.
The audience must not see Medea slaying her children,
or the diabolical Atreus cooking human flesh,
or Procne sprouting wings or Cadmus becoming a snake.
I disbelieve such exhibitions and find them abhorrent.

No play should be longer or shorter than five acts,

190 if it hopes to stage a revival ‘in response to public demand’.
Don’t let a god intervene unless the denouement requires
such a solution; nor should a fourth character speak.
The chorus should take the role of an actor, discharging its duty
with all its energy; and don’t let it sing between the acts
anything not germane and tightly joined to the plot.
It ought to side with the good and give them friendly advice,
control the furious, encourage those who are filled with fear.
It ought to praise the simple meal which is not protracted,
healthy justice and laws, and peace with her open gates.
200 It ought to preserve secrets, and pray and beseech the gods
that good fortune may leave the proud and return to the wretched.

The pipe (which was not, as now, ringed with brass and a rival
of the trumpet, but rather slender and simple with not many
[openings)
was once enough to guide and assist the chorus and fill
with its breath the rows of seats which weren’t too densely packed.
The crowd was, naturally, easy to count because it was small,
and the folk brought with them honest hearts, decent and modest.
When, thanks to their victories, the people widened their country,
extending the walls around their city and flouting the ban
210 which used to restrain daytime drinking on public occasions,
a greater degree of licence appeared in tunes and tempo.
(What taste was likely from an ignorant crowd on holiday,
a mixture of country and town, riff-raff and well-to-do?)
Vulgar finery and movements augmented the ancient art,
as the piper trailed his robe and minced across the stage.
The musical range of the sober lyre was also enlarged,
while a cascading style brought in a novel delivery,
THE ARS POETICA 127

and the thought, which shrewdly purveyed moral advice and also
predicted the future, came to resemble the Delphic oracles.

The man who competed in tragic verse for a worthless he-goat 220

later presented as well the naked rustic satyrs.

Rough, though without any loss of dignity, he turned to joking;
for the crowd which, after observing the rites, was drunk and
[unruly,
had to be kept in their seats by something new and attractive.
However, to make a success of your clownish cheeky satyrs
and achieve a proper transition from heavy to light, make sure
that no god or hero who is brought on to the stage
shall, after just being seen in regal purple and gold,
take his language down to the plane of a dingy cottage,
or in trying to keep aloft grasp at cloudy nothings. 230

Tragedy thinks it beneath her to spout frivolous verse;

and so, like a lady obliged to dance on a public holiday,
she’ll be a little reluctant to join the boisterous satyrs.
If I ever write a satyr drama, my Pisos, I shan’t
confine my choice to plain and familiar nouns and verbs;
nor shall I strive so hard to avoid the tone of tragedy
that it might as well be the voice of Davus or brazen Pythias,
who has just obtained a talent by wiping Simo’s eye,
as of Silenus - guardian and servant of the god in his care.
I’ll aim at a new blend of familiar ingredients; and people 240

will think it’s easy - but will waste a lot of sweat and effort
if they try to copy it. Such is the power of linkage and joinery,
such the lustre that is given forth by commonplace words.
Fauns from the forest, in my opinion, ought to be careful
not to go in for the dandy’s over-emotional verses,
or to fire off volleys of filthy, disgraceful jokes,
as if they came from the street corner or the city square.
Knights - free-born and men of property - take offence
and don’t greet with approval all that’s enjoyed by the buyer
of roasted nuts and chick-peas, or give it a winner’s garland. 250

A long syllable after a short is named Iambus.

Being a quick foot, he ordered iambic verses
to be called ‘trimeters’, in spite of the fact that six beats
occurred in a pure iambic line. At a time in the past,
so as to reach the ear with a bit more weight and slowness,
he was kind and obliging enough to adopt the stately spondees
 128 HORACE

and share the family inheritance - though never going so far

in friendship as to relinquish the second or fourth position.
Iambus rarely appears in Accius’ ‘noble’ trimeters,
260 and his all too frequent absence from the lines that Ennius trundles
onto the stage leaves them open to the damaging charge
of hasty and slapdash work or a disregard of art.

It isn’t every critic who detects unmusical pieces;

so Roman poets have enjoyed quite excessive indulgence.
Shall I therefore break out, and ignore the laws of writing?
Or assume my faults will be seen by all, and huddle securely
within the permitted range? Then I’ve avoided blame;
I haven’t earned any praise. My Roman friends, I urge you:
get hold of your Greek models, and study them day and night.
270 To be sure, your forefathers praised the rhythm and wit of Plautus.
On both counts their admiration was far too generous,
in fact it was stupid - assuming that you and I know how
to tell the difference between clumsy and clever jokes,
and discern correctness of sound with the aid of ear and fingers.

We are told Thespis discovered the genre of the tragic Muse

which was never known before; he carried his plays on a wagon
to be sung and acted by men who had smeared lees on their faces.
After him came Aeschylus, introducing the mask
and lordly robe; he laid a stage on lowish supports
280 and called for a sonorous diction and the wearing of high-soled boots.
Old Comedy followed, winning a lot of acclaim;
but its freedom exceeded the proper limit and turned to violence
which needed a law to control it. The lav/ was obeyed, and the
[chorus
fell silent in disgrace, having lost its right of insult.

Our own native poets have left nothing untried.

They have often been at their best when they have had the courage
to leave the paths of the Greeks and celebrate home affairs
with plays in Roman dress, whether serious or comic.
Latium now would be just as strong in her tongue as she is
290 in her valour and glorious arms if the patient work of the file
didn’t deter our poets each and every one.
Children of Numa, condemn the piece which many a day
and many a rub of the stilus have not smoothed and corrected
ten times over, to meet the test of the well-pared nail.
THE ARS POETICA I

Because Democritus holds talent a greater blessing

than poor despised technique and debars a poet from Helicon
unless he’s mad, many no longer cut their nails
or beard; they make for secluded spots and avoid the baths.
For a man will surely acquire the name and esteem of a poet
if he never allows the scissors of Licinus near his head -
a head which three Anticyras couldn’t cure. And me?
Like a fool I banish madness by taking springtime sedatives.
No one could put together better poems; but really
it isn’t worth it. And so I’ll play the part of a grindstone
which sharpens steel but itself has no part in the cutting.
Without writing, I’ll teach the poet his office and function,
where he can find his resources, what nurtures and shapes him,
what is correct, what not; what is right and wrong.
Moral sense is the fountain and source of proper writing.
The pages of Socrates’ school will indicate your material;
once that is provided, words will readily follow.
First be clear on what is due to your country and friends;
what is involved in loving a parent, brother, or guest;
what is the conduct required of a judge or member of senate;
what are the duties imposed on a general sent to the front.
Then you wifi give the proper features to every character.
The trained playwright, I say, should turn to life and behaviour
for dramatic models - and as a source of living speech.
A play with attractive moral comments and credible characters,
but wholly lacking in charm and poetic force and finish,
sometimes pleases the public and holds its interest better
than lines devoid of content - mere melodious wind.
The Muse bestowed on the Greeks talent and also the favour
of eloquent speech; they craved for nothing but admiration.
Roman children learn by doing long calculations
how to divide the as a hundred times. ‘Very well then,
young Albanus: five twelfths - we subtract one of them,
what’s the remainder? Come on, hurry up!’
‘A third, sir.’
‘Splendid!
You'll look after your money! Now add a twelfth to make it -’
‘A half.’ But when this craze for coppers, this verdigris,
has formed on our hearts, how can we hope to fashion poems
fit to be oiled with cedar and stored in polished cypress?
 130 HORACE

The aim of a poet is either to benefit or to please

or to say what is both enjoyable and of service.
When you are giving advice, be brief, to allow the learner
quickly to seize the point and then retain it firmly.
If the mind is full, every superfluous word is spilt.
Make sure that fictions designed to amuse are close to reality.
A play should not expect us to take whatever it offers -
340 like ‘child devoured by ogress is brought alive from her belly’.
The senior bloc refuses plays which haven’t a message;
the haughty young bloods curl their nostrils at anything dry;
everyone votes for the man who mixes wholesome and sweet,
giving his reader an equal blend of help and delight.
That book earns the Sosii money; it crosses the ocean,
winning fame for the author and ensuring a long survival.

There are, of course, certain mistakes which should be forgiven.

A string doesn’t always sound as mind and finger intended
[when you want a bass it very often emits a treble],
3 50 nor does a bow invariably hit whatever it aims at.
In a poem with many brilliant features I shan’t be offended
by a few little blots which a careless pen has allowed to fall
or human nature has failed to prevent. Where do we stand, then?
If a copying clerk persistently makes the same mistake
in spite of numerous warnings, he is not excused; if a harpist
always misses the same note he causes laughter.
So for me the inveterate bungler becomes a Choerilus,
whose rare touches of goodness amaze and amuse me; I even
feel aggrieved when Homer, the pattern of goodness, nods.
360 Sleep, however, is bound to creep in on a lengthy work.

A poem is like a picture. One will seem more attractive

from close at hand, another is better viewed from a distance.
This one likes the gloom; this longs for the daylight,
and knows it has nothing to fear from the critic’s searching eye.
That pleased once; this will please again and again.

My dear Piso major, although your father’s voice

and your own good sense are keeping you straight, hear and
[remember
this pronouncement: in only a limited number of fields
is ‘fairly good’ sufficient. An average jurist and lawyer
370 comes nowhere near the rhetorical power of brilliant Messalla,
THE ARS POETICA 131

nor does he know as much as Aulus Cascellius; still,

he has a certain value; that poets should be only average
is a privilege never conceded by men, gods, or bookshops.
When, at a smart dinner, the orchestra’s out of tune,
or the scent is heavy, or poppyseeds come in Sardinian honey,
we take it amiss; for the meal could have been served without them.
It’s the same with a poem, whose raison d’etre is to please the
[mind;
as soon as it misses the top level, it sinks to the bottom.
A man who is hopeless at field events avoids the equipment,
keeping his ignorant hands off shot, discus and javelin,
for fear of giving the crowds of spectators a free laugh.
The fellow who is useless at writing poetry still attempts it.
Why not? He’s free, and so was his father; his fortune is rated
at the sum required of a knight; and his heart’s in the right place!

You will compose and complete nothing against the grain

(you have too much sense and taste). If you do write something
[later,
be sure to read it aloud to the critic Tarpa, and also
to your father and me. Then hold it back ‘till the ninth year’,
keeping your jotter inside the house. You can always delete
what hasn’t been published; a word let loose is gone for ever.

Before men left the jungle, a holy prophet of heaven,

Orpheus, made them abhor bloodshed and horrible food.
Hence he is said to have tamed rabid lions and tigers.
It is also said that Amphion, who built the city of Thebes,
moved rocks by the sound of his lyre and led them at will
by his soft appeals. This was the wisdom of olden days:
to draw a line between sacred and secular, public and private;
to bar indiscriminate sex, and establish laws of marriage;
to build towns and inscribe legal codes on wood.
That is how heavenly bards and their poems came to acquire
honour and glory; after them Tyrtaeus and Homer
won renown, for their verses sharpened the courage of men
to enter battle. Song was the medium of oracles, song
showed the way through life. By means of Pierian tunes
a king’s favour was sought, and an entertainment devised
to close a season of long work. So don’t be ashamed
if you love the Muse’s skill on the lyre and Apollo’s singing.
 132. HORACE

Is it a gift or a craft that makes outstanding poetry?

I fail, myself, to see the good either of study
410 without a spark of genius or of untutored talent.
Each requires the other’s help in a common cause.
The Olympic athlete who strains to breast the finishing tape
worked and suffered a lot as a boy, sweating and freezing,
leaving wine and women alone. The piper competing
at Delphi was once a learner and stood in awe of his teacher.
Is it enough to proclaim Tm a marvellous poet!
The last one home is a cissy; I hate to lag behind
or admit I’m utterly ignorant of something I never learnt’?

As an auctioneer attracts a crowd to bid for his goods,

420 a poet with large estates and large sums invested
encourages toadies to come and obtain something for nothing.
If he’s also the sort who knows how to serve delicious dinners,
who will sponsor a shifty and penniless client or come to his rescue
when he’s up to his neck in a lawsuit, then I’ll be very surprised
if the lucky fellow can tell a true friend from a sham.
When you have given someone a present, or plan to do so,
and he’s pleased and excited, never invite him to hear any verses
you have written. He’ll shout ‘Fine! Lovely! Oh yes!’
He will turn pale at this, at that he will squeeze a tear
430 from his loyal eyes; he will jump to his feet and stamp the ground.
Just as those who are hired to come and wail at a funeral
say and do, if anything, more than the truly bereaved,
so the fake is more visibly moved than the real admirer.
When kings are keen to examine a man and see if he merits
their trust, we are told, they make him submit to the test of wine,
plying him with a succession of glasses. So if you compose,
make sure you are not deceived by the fox’s hidden malice.

When you read a piece to Quintilius he’d say ‘Now shouldn’t you
[alter
that and that?’ If you swore you had tried again and again
440 but couldn’t do any better, he’d tell you to rub it out
and to put the lines which were badly finished back on the anvil.
If, instead of removing the fault, you chose to defend it,
he wouldn’t waste another word or lift a finger
to stop you loving yourself and your work without a rival.
An honest and sensible man will fault lines that are feeble,
condemn the clumsy, proscribe with a black stroke of the pen
THE ARS POETICA 133

those which haven’t been trimmed, prune pretentious adornment,

where a place is rather dark insist that light be admitted,
detect ambiguous expressions, and mark what ought to be changed.
He’ll be a new Aristarchus; nor will he say ‘Why should I
annoy a friend over trifles?’ For such ‘trifles’ will lead
to serious trouble once he is greeted with laughter and hisses.

As with the man who suffers from a skin disease or jaundice

or religious frenzy caused by the lunar goddess’s anger,
sensible people are wary of touching the crazy poet
and keep their distance; children unwisely follow and tease him.
Away he goes, head in the air, spouting his verses;
and if, like a fowler watching a bird, he happens to tumble
into a pit or a well, however long he may holler
‘Somebody! Help!’ no one will bother to pull him out.
If anyone does bring help and drops him down a rope,
‘How do you know,’ I’ll say, ‘he didn’t throw himself in
on purpose, and doesn’t want to be left there?’ I’ll add the tale
of the poet of Sicily’s death - how Empedocles, eager to join
the immortals, leaped into Etna’s inferno (thus catching fire
for the first time). Dying is a poet’s right and privilege.
To save him against his will is tantamount to murder.
He’s done it before; and it’s not as if, when you hauled him up,
he’d become human and cease to yearn for a notable death.
One wonders why he persists in writing poetry. Is it
a judgement for pissing on his father’s ashes, or has he profaned
a gruesome place where lightning has struck? He’s certainly mad,
and like a bear that has managed to smash the bars of its cage
he scatters everyone, cultured or not, by the threat of reciting.
For he firmly grips the person he catches, and reads him to death.
The leech never lets go the skin till he’s full of blood.
192. NOTES

that in matters of love a line of Mimnermus had more power than the
whole of Homer.
110. Censor: This magistrate had the power to remove from the senate any
members who had proved unworthy of their position.
114. Vesta’s temple: As this represented the hearth of the state, Horace
seems to be speaking of words which claim to have a legitimate status
in the poetic language of Rome. To explain the metaphor more pre¬
cisely we would need further evidence.
117. Cato: The Censor, who was Consul in 195 bc.
Cethegus: M. Cornelius Cethegus was Consul in 204 bc.
158. bronze and balance: The jurist Gaius (1. 119) describes the symbolic
act of conveying property (mancipatio) whereby one of five witnesses
held a balance and the purchaser touched it with a coin of bronze,
which he then handed to the vendor.
159. use: Property could also be acquired by usucapio, i.e. possession for a
certain period.
160. Orbius: Unknown. Horace is now drawing on another sense of ‘use’,
viz. ‘benefit’, as if having the benefit of a piece of property was as good
as owning it.
167. Aricia: Fifteen miles south-east of Rome.
Veiv. Ten miles north-west of Rome.
172. as if anything were ‘ours’: Having read i6off. one might want to point
out that after enjoying the benefit of a farm (and paying rent) for fifty
years, the tenant would still not end up as the owner. Horace answers
by saying, in effect, ‘So what? Eventually the owner himself ends up
dead.’
177-8. Lucanian . . . Calabria: Lucania and Calabria are large areas in the
south of Italy.
179. Orcus: God of the underworld.
184. Herod: Herod the Great, who reigned in Judaea from 39-4 bc, had
famous groves of date-palms near Jericho.
188. mortal god: The Genius is the divine projection of the man’s self. It
shares his fortune and characteristics, and does not survive his death.
209. Thessalian: Thessaly in northern Greece was remote and backward,
hence mysterious.

The Ars Poetica

6. Pisos: According to Porphyrion, these were L. Calpurnius Piso (Consul
15 bc) and his sons. No sons have been certainly identified but see
pp. 19-21 of my commentary.
50. Cethegi: An old patrician family.
55. Caecilius and Plautus: See notes on Epistles II. 1. 58-9.
60a. and others . . . place: The words in italics are supplied by conjecture.
64. Neptune welcomed ashore: I.e. the construction of a harbour.
79. Archilochus: See note on Epistles I. 19. 24.
NOTES 193

80. sock and the stately buskin: Comedy and tragedy, as represented by
their footwear. The ‘sock’ was a kind of slipper.
90. Thyestes’ banquet: See note on Persius 5. 8.
94. Chremes: The angry father was a stock figure in New Comedy; the
Chremes of Terence’s Heautontimorumenos was not the only charac¬
ter of that name.
96. Peleus: Experienced many troubles (including exile on two occasions)
before marrying Thetis and becoming the father of Achilles.
Telephus: Son of Hercules, went to Achilles in a pitiful condition
begging him to heal the wound which he had inflicted.
118. Colchian: A fierce barbarian from the region east of the Black Sea.
Assyrian-. A soft, effeminate type, representing oriental luxury.
120. dishonoured: The text honoratum (‘honoured’) gives the wrong sense.
I have translated Nisbet’s conjecture inornatum (‘deprived of honour’);
cf. Odes IV. 9. 31.
123. Medea: The princess from Colchis who protected Jason but was later
abandoned by him and took a terrible revenge. The most famous
treatment of the story is that of Euripides.
Ino: Another tragic heroine, but of a more pathetic kind than the
fierce Medea. She was driven mad by Hera for nursing the infant
Dionysus.
124. Ixion: Murdered Eioneus having promised him a generous sum for the
hand of his daughter. He was purified by Zeus, but repaid him by
attempting to violate Hera.
Io: Loved by Zeus and then turned into a heifer. After many wander¬
ings she reached Egypt, where she was restored to human shape.
Orestes: Murdered his mother Clytemnestra to avenge the death of
his father Agamemnon.
136. cyclic poet: The epic cycle was a collection of post-Homeric epics
artificially arranged in a series so as to run from the creation of the
world to the end of the heroic age. The particular poet referred to by
Horace has not been identified.
137-8. Of Priam’s fate . . . promise-. A paraphrase of the opening of the
Odyssey.
145. the cannibal king . . . Charybdis: The figures mentioned come from
Odyssey 10. ioof., 9. 187k, and 12. 8if.
146. Diomedes’ return: I.e. some cyclic poet began his account of Diomedes’
return from Troy with the death of the hero’s great-uncle Meleager.
Homer does not waste time on such tedious preliminaries.
172. he puts things . . . the future: A difficult and controversial line. Follow¬
ing Bentley, I have adopted spe lentus instead of spe longus, and
pavidus futuri instead of avidus futuri. The reading avidus futuri would
mean ‘longs for the future’. Even if it is true that the typical old man
is eager for the future (which I doubt), Horace would hardly have used
the dynamic avidus along with iners (listless).
194 NOTES

186. Atreus: Murdered the sons of his brother Thyestes and served them to
their father at dinner.
187. Procne: Served her son Itys to her husband Tereus in revenge for
Tereus’ rape and mutilation of her sister Philomela. When pursued by
Tereus, Procne changed into a nightingale (or a swallow).
Cadmus: The founder of Thebes, eventually went to Illyria with his
wife Harmonia, where they were both turned into large but harmless
snakes.
220. he-goat: Horace is alluding to the derivation of tragedy from tragos,
the Greek for he-goat.
221. satyrs: A reference to the origin of satyric drama.
237-8. Davus . . . Pythias . . . Simo: Comic characters; the first a slave, the
second a slave-girl, and the third an old man.
239. Silenus: The teacher and guardian of Bacchus, seen here as a dignified
figure.
253. trimeters: An iambic metron consisted of two feet; hence a trimeter
had six.
254. At a time in the past: Glosses over an unsolved crux.
259. noble: Not in Horace’s judgment, but in that of Accius’ admirers. For
Accius, see note on Satires I. 10. 53.
270. Plautus: See note on Epistles II. 1. 58.
275. Thespis: See note on Epistles II. 1. 163.
278. Aeschylus: See note on Epistles II. 1. 163.
281. Old Comedy: Its three main representatives are named in Satires I. 4. 1.
292. Children of Numa: The Calpurnius Piso family claimed to trace its
descent from King Numa.
293. stilus: The blunt end of the stilus was used as an eraser.
295. Democritus holds: Probably in his book on poetry.
talent: Ingenium.
296. technique: Ars.
300. Licinus: Unknown.
301. three Anticyras: Anticyra in Phocis on the Gulf of Corinth produced
hellebore, which was used in the treatment of madness. Three Anticyras,
therefore, meant something like ‘three times the output of Anticyra’.
309. Moral sense: Sap ere.
310. Socrates’ school: A vague phrase denoting ‘writers on moral phil¬
osophy’.
343. wholesome and sweet: Utile and dulce.
349. [when you want. . . a treble]: This line is probably spurious. The fault
it describes is not a minor one, and there is a difficulty over the word
persaepe. See Brink’s note.
357. Choerilus: See note on Epistles II. 1. 233.
370. Messalla: See note on Satires I. 10. 28.
371. Aulus Cascellius: Born c. 104 bc. He may not have been still alive, but
his reputation survived.
NOTES 195

375. Sardinian honey: This was bitter.

387. Tarpa: See note on Satires I. 10. 38.
388. the ninth year: Probably an allusion to Cinna’s Zmyrna, which accord¬
ing to Catullus 95 finally saw the light in the ninth year.
392. Orpheus: The moral progress brought about by Orpheus is ascribed
to his poetry.
394. Amphion: See note on Epistles I. 18. 42.
401. Tyrtaeus: A Spartan elegiac poet of the seventh century bc.
404. Pierian: The district of Pieria in Thessaly was associated with the
Muses.
405. a king’s favour: Simonides, Pindar, and Bacchylides sought the patron¬
age of rulers in fifth-century Sicily.
414-15. Delphi: There were musical competitions at the Pythian games.
437. fox’s hidden malice: In Aesop’s fable the crow, congratulated on his
singing by the cunning fox, drops the piece of cheese.
438. Quintilius: Quintilius Varus of Cremona, the friend of Horace and
Virgil, died in 24/23 bc. See Odes I. 24.
454. lunar goddess: Diana; cf. ‘lunacy’.
464-6. how Empedocles . . . the first time: Empedocles associated cold
blood with dullness, which is apparently why Horace calls him frigidus,
an adjective which could be used in a literary context. See also Epistles
I. 12. 2on.
472. a gruesome place: A place struck by lightning was fenced off and
consecrated. Cf. Persius 2. 26.

PERSIUS
Prologue
1. cart-horse spring: A deflationary translation of the Greek Hippocrene,
the name given to the spring of the Muses on Mount Helicon. It was
produced by a kick from Pegasus.
2. dreamed: Hesiod (Theogony 22ff.) tells how the Muses appeared to
him on Mount Helicon and inspired him to write poetry. In the third
century bc the Alexandrian poet Callimachus told in his Aetia
(Origins) how he had been transported in a dream to Mount Helicon
w'here he too had been instructed by the Muses. Ennius (239-169 bc),
the father of Roman poetry, related in the introduction to his Annals
how he had gone to the mountain of the Muses. Falling asleep there he
dreamed that Homer’s ghost expounded the doctrine of transmigration
and told him that he now possessed Homer’s soul. In the late twenties
Propertius says (III. 30) that he dreamed he was on Mount Helicon
contemplating a poem on Roman history when Apollo appeared to
him and advised him to sing about love. It is not clear why Persius
mentions Parnassus instead of Helicon. Perhaps he found it in another